Soda bottles are lying around on a table.
Next to bags of crisps and triangle sandwiches, which militants with drawn features nibble, while discussing.
Three musicians improvised a jazz concert in the middle of the huge room, moldings on the ceiling, and old paintings on the walls.
And on the imposing stone statue of Racine float two red flags of the CGT.
It's a pretty good-natured atmosphere, which reigns this Friday afternoon, in the foyer of the Odéon theater, in Paris (6th century).
Since the day before, about fifty people have entered the premises to ask for aid measures in favor of cultural professions.
A strong symbol that echoes the occupation, in May 1968, of this same Parisian theater by the students.
The activities of this subsidized room, rehearsals and readings, were able to continue normally.
The general assembly the day before ended at midnight.
To sleep, then, the occupants stretched out on the floor, in the passageways or in the foyer.
“I put myself in the auditorium, between two rows of seats, because there, at least, there is carpet, smiles an activist.
I had just taken my toothbrush ”.
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What these "occupants of the Odeon", as they have called themselves, are demanding, is in particular the extension of the white year for intermittent entertainment workers "and its extension to all precarious workers".
They also demand the withdrawal of the unemployment insurance reform this summer and a "massive plan" to support employment for the cultural sector.
“We feel forgotten, sickened, tired, sighs, a sign around our necks, Christelle, a tour guide who spent the night here.
And we see that by being nice, we get nothing.
For us, there is no white year, we have no help.
It's very complicated, unemployment rights do not last forever.
Colleagues have even returned to live with their parents.
And that concerns a lot of people!
"By now, a lot of friends of mine will not have done enough hours to keep their status of intermittent," says Thomas, a 40-year-old musician.
And now, we ask them to work these hours, but without giving them the possibility, since everything is closed.
It's ubiquitous ”.
And it is directly to the Prime Minister that the occupants address themselves, asking for the meeting of a national council of the performing professions.
“We won't go out before.
The Minister of Culture is no longer a credible partner, ”angered a CGT activist, reacting to the proposal for a meeting on March 22 with Roselyne Bachelot.
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It's 2 p.m. this Friday, the windows overlooking the square are wide open and downstairs, the crowds are starting to gather.
The general assembly starts and the speeches follow one another.
On the square, a few hundred people responded to the call to demonstrate.
"Interminable intermission" or "Art is everything they doubt", can we read on the signs waved by students, who came in large numbers.
The reopening of cultural venues is also what the gathered crowd came to ask for.
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"I am shocked to see that the management of this subsidized theater does not support the movement," gets angry Gabriella, independent worker in subtitling and dance, Italian living in France.
Even if she is a civil servant, she must have the strength to oppose it, to support the technicians, and all their precarious colleagues.
It's all the French ambiguity and it disappoints me ”.
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Alice, Zoe and Chloe want to show their anger.
“We have no possibility of projecting ourselves, it's scary, react these three students in theater arts.
The churches, the shops are open.
When we say that, we've said it all.
It is a political choice, revealing of our society.
We do not want a world deprived of culture.
It has to reopen.
"
At the end of the afternoon, the occupants awaited the relief of ten people, for another night in the theater.
A new call to assemble on Saturday at 2 p.m. has been issued.
Contacted, the Ministry of Culture did not respond to our requests.
